“He answered with great contempt, ‘No.’

“‘She has some recent association with the number twelve?’

“The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘With twelve

o’clock.’

“‘See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon her

breast, ‘how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known

what I was coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is,

time must be lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in this

lonely place.’

“The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily,

‘There is a case of medicines here’; and brought it from a closet,

and put it on the table.

“I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers

to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines

that were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered

any of those.

“‘Do you doubt them?’ asked the younger brother.

“‘You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, and said

no more.

“I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after

many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to

repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its

influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. There was a

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man

down-stairs), who had retreated into a corner. The house was

damp and decayed, indifferently furnishedevidently, recently

occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had been

nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks.

They continued to be uttered in their regular succession, with the

cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ the counting up to

twelve, and ‘Hush!’ The frenzy was so violent, that I had not

unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but I had looked to

them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of

encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer’s

breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time

it tranquilised the figure. It had no effect upon the cries; no

pendulum could be more regular.

“For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had

sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers

looking on, before the elder said:

“‘There is another patient.’

“I was startled, and asked, ‘Is it a pressing case?’

“‘You had better see,’ he carelessly answered; and took up a

light.

“The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase,

which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered

ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled

roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in

that portion of the place, faggots for firing, and a heap of apples in